


The Story On My Skin

by MueraRashaye, Origami_Roses



Series: Aelius' Backstory Ficlets [5]
Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Cultural Differences, Gen, Gender Related, Headcanon, Tattoos, Worldbuilding, scholars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27033985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MueraRashaye/pseuds/MueraRashaye, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origami_Roses/pseuds/Origami_Roses
Summary: Aelius had found allies in the Valdemaran capital's scholars, though Kantor would undoubtedly insist they were his friends. Whatever the word, their acquaintance wasusefuland fascinating besides. Though some of the questions they asked did raise concerning points about the nation he'd started to settle roots in...
Series: Aelius' Backstory Ficlets [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1474505
Comments: 30
Kudos: 55





	The Story On My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> More world building and some key aspects of Aelius' culture and his appearance as a human (and... well actually there's a surprising amount of hints in here, to be honest) are finally introduced!!!! Hope you enjoy! -MR

“Last panel!” Reanne announced, sounding more than a little triumphant and Aelius huffed a laugh, pushing the wheeled ladder she was standing on to the next panel of shelving and hauling the now almost empty cart of books with him as he went. Passing the two higher-shelf books to her, he slid the last one into the gap on the third shelf. Over the course of this investigation, he had become quite familiar with the legal section of the library. Without that he’d have had no idea where _Valdemaran Perspectives on Lethal Punishment_ belonged.

“And done!” Reanne cheered, sliding down the ladder and stretching, smiling up at him and continuing, “Thank you for the help today Aelius, I know you’re in the middle of your own research.”

“The numbers were starting to swim,” Aelius said, grimacing, “And it is too humid and hot for me to go for a run and focus after.”

“Ugh, that sounds like death,” she agreed, taking the book cart and starting to wheel it back to the front. Aelius walked alongside for lack of anything else to do. Kantor was out of Haven, the twins were still in the process of integrating into the City Guard and Nadya had announced she was planning to thoroughly enjoy her night off from the investigation he’d accidentally dragged her into.

“If you don’t mind us being our nosy selves at least a bit, you’re welcome to join us for drinks,” Reanne offered, tilting her head towards the large window they were passing, evidently indicating the way the sun was almost touching the horizon.

“Who all is going to be there?” Aelius asked warily, “Some of your set are ruder than the rest.”

“Merrick left Haven this morning, you’re safe for a few weeks,” Reanne said, wincing, “It’s Garen and I for sure, maybe Patrek and Jules.”

“Well then, as long as I get some of _my_ questions answered as well, I accept,” Aelius decided, more relieved than he’d expected at the news that the rudest scholar he’d met thus far was no longer in Haven. He understood curiosity and sympathized. Reanne had taken his pointed reminders that while he would answer questions about the cultures and lands he had encountered he reserved the right to refuse to answer, _especially_ if the questions were personal, rather well. All of the scholars he’d spoken to thus far had accepted his occasional refusal to answer a question quite respectfully, bar one.

And a very _memorable_ one at that.

“He was supposed to be trained as a diplomat if you can believe it,” Reanne commented, putting the cart back and hooking her arm through Aelius’, grinning when he laughed at the idea of Merrick being in charge of any sort of diplomatic process.

“And your people decided they did not want wars on every possible front? Very wise,” he said dryly.

“One of the better decisions, yes,” she agreed, tugging him deeper into the library rather than out the main entrance. A side exit perhaps? “Now come on, I shelved instead of getting supplies. The shelf patio usually gets a nice breeze this time of year, it might be a bit of relief from the heat.”

“The what?” he asked, wondering if he had simply misunderstood the words she had used, but Reanne just grinned and didn’t bother clarifying, leading him instead to an oddly dark section of the library and a set of tiered shelves, moving a chair aside and revealing a set of boots and a pair of soft-soled shoes.

“Boots off, we can’t get away with this if we leave boot prints all over the wood,” Reanne said, pulling her own soft-soled slippers off before climbing up onto the lowest of the shelves. Aelius hesitated a moment before shrugging and following her example, pausing to move the chair back into place to somewhat hide the boots.

“These shelves are well anchored in the wall, even the short ones, yes?” he confirmed, feeling rather intrigued as he followed Reanne up the shelves – they weren’t quite designed for this, there was one point where Reanne had to show him a slightly protruding brick to step up on so they could clamber up to the next shelf.

“Oh, of course,” Reanne assured him, pointing at a window he would never have noticed from the ground, blocked by the shelves to the point only the semi-circular top was visible even standing on the shelf that blocked it. Who on earth would block up a window with book cases?

Reanne knelt down and swung one of the two glass panels open, sticking her head out and calling, “I brought him! Steady the ladder will you?”

“Got it!” Garen called up, and Aelius knelt down to peer out the window himself, intrigued to see a rather nice - though neglected - balcony. There was no access point from the ground that he could see, and apparently the actual door was long blocked off by bookshelves, of all things.

Reanne slid out of the window and onto the ladder in a well practiced maneuver, especially in those heavy skirts she wore. The ladder was definitely brought out by some enterprising scholar, it was the same sort of ladder as was in the library, and Aelius waited for her to get clear before he swung himself out onto the ladder and pulled the glass panel mostly shut before he climbed down.

“Welcome!” Garen greeted, sweeping his arms out in a wide, overly theatrical gesture, “To the most secret of spots!”

“Yes, your shouting about it is very secretive,” Aelius agreed dryly, the three scholars all laughing and Garen clapping him on the shoulder.

“Come on, Patrek managed to wheedle a chilled cask out of the stores and I found us some of that new nut and honey pastry everyone’s been raving about,” Garen urged. Reanne had already seated herself on the stone and was pouring two mugs of ale. Settling against the wall, Aelius stretched his legs out and accepted the mug Reanne offered him, examining the balcony the scholars had evidently claimed as their exclusive gathering spot.

“Quite the spot,” he finally said, “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

“Merrick asked you about kill counts broken down by method of death and you _didn’t_ throw him down the stairs,” Patrek said dryly, breaking off a piece of the literal slab of pastry they had brought. “I think you’ve earned it for that alone, not to mention the fact we are desperately trying to bribe you into letting us copy some of your dictionaries.”

“I have already agreed to that, after this investigation is written up. I need the dictionary chain intact for now,” Aelius retorted, shaking his head, “And I told you I would make a copy of the Iftelen pamphlet for you whenever you wanted.”

“I _can’t_ ,” the translation specialist groaned, looking genuinely grieved, “If I start on Iftel, even a basic phrase pamphlet, I will _never_ finish my actual tasks in time. Winter. Winter is mine, and I will dissect every _pen stroke_ of that pamphlet!”

“Promises, promises,” Garen teased, perking up and looking blissful as the breeze picked up. Aelius couldn’t blame him at all, taking the chance to unbuckle his gorget and bracers, stacking them next to him with his wrist blades and rolling up his sleeves. At least he hadn’t officially joined any chapter of Valdemar’s guard yet, their uniforms were all darkly colored, though they did at least have linen. He was going to enjoy getting to wear lighter colors as well as cooler fabrics for as long as he could.

“Twain! What on earth are _those_?” Patrek demanded, pointing at Aelius’ arms.

“And how do you get the paint to avoid smearing?” Reanne asked, peering at the marks on his throat, “You always wear that gorget, why do you even bother painting your neck? Is it religious?”

“Well that answers one question,” Aelius said wryly, shaking his head, “Herald Kantor did not know what they were either. They are _tattoos_ , and it has nothing to do with whatever drum meaning the word has here. Mine are not religious, though some people do use them for religious markers. Everyone in Crane has some.”

“Really? Oh! Your Captain had them, right? That’s why people thought you were brothers or cousins or something?”

“Right,” Aelius agreed, ignoring the pang that mention of his Captain brought and holding out his left wrist, nodding at Garen’s questioning gesture and huffing a laugh when all three of them immediately reached for his lineage tattoo, predictably exclaiming over the fact that it felt exactly like normal skin.

“Every human born in Crane receives one of these,” he explained after they got most of the exclamations out of their system, running his finger along the boundary circle as he pointed to each piece of the bordering band, “This pattern denotes clan, passed on from mother. This is my birth year and generation marker – we cycle our history in 125 year cycles, with five 25 year generations per cycle. This set tells which _Zhe’kan_ my full lineage records are kept in.”

“And the ones in the center?” Reanne asked, sounding as fascinated as Patrek and Garen looked.

“Individual and parentage identifiers. The center is mine, mother and father flanking it, mother's parents flanking hers and father's parents flanking his.”

“That’s _amazing_ ,” Garen breathed, “May I ask why lineage is so important?”

“Avoids inbreeding,” Aelius shrugged, taking a sip of his beer, “Keeps you from accidentally getting a child on a half sibling from another part of the country. If you have similar clans or any repeated individual sigils, you go to the complete records location and ask for details.”

“What’s the blue? The rest of it is black, but these blue sigils?” Patrek asked, pointing at the vivid blue sigils bordering his lineage disc.

“That identifies the blood-linked soul curse my family bears,” Aelius replied, huffing a laugh, “I knew from a young age I could not stay in Crane, but not getting that warning tattooed on my skin never even occurred to me.”

“Well that tells us what that one means, but how does it _work?_ Is it magical? And what do these ones mean? Or the ones on your neck? How many of these do you _have_?” Garen asked incredulously, definitely deliberately changing the topic from the bloodline curse that had prompted Aelius’ first snarling reminder of his right to his own life story.

“More than I can count,” Aelius said dryly, sitting back and taking some pastry with him, but not rolling down his sleeves. The whole point of the standard tattoos in Crane was to give everyone a baseline understanding of how to politely speak to another person at a glance, keeping them covered was a habit he had gotten into after getting tired of constant questions and one memorable campaign in a nation where tattoos were a mark of criminality. Bathing there had gotten _very_ complicated for a _lot_ of them, what with half the Company having a tattoo or two within a few years of Aelius joining. Aelius had honestly been surprised the Captain had even been offered the contract – the man had never worn a gorget to contract negotiations for just that reason.

“Some have magic, not many, but some wards,” Aelius brushed off, indicating his right arm, “These have no particular meaning, this is art. On my neck are another standard set for Crane – the dark red band in the center is for declared gender, the lower black band for coming of age, and the sigils between them are for my declared masteries. The bright red one at the top is for my blood-rage, the black band just beneath it means I was trained to deal with it.”

“Declared gender?” Reanne asked, sounding confused, “I suppose for some people it isn’t obvious, but that seems… a lot of effort for a small group to not be called the wrong gender.”

Aelius paused, because Kantor not being familiar with soul mismatches had been odd, considering his position of authority in Valdemar. But for all three of the scholars he knew, two of whom were considered cross-cultural interpretation and translation experts, to have no apparent idea or concept of soul-body mismatch? That was… honestly rather distressing. It was far from the first time he had run into a culture with only a concept of body gender, but it never got less jarring, and this was a culture he was going to spend the rest of his life with, not one he would be able to shake his head over and walk away from.

He was one man. He was one ex-mercenary lucky enough to befriend a Herald towards the end of his contract. All he could do was explain, and hope someone somewhere liked the idea enough to promote it further. But he doubted it would spread very far. At least in Valdemar they had the fundamental No One True Way custom. That was something.

“Gender is not _unrelated_ to body, but it is not the same,” Aelius said, glad he’d already had to fumble his way through an explanation of this to Kantor and had gotten a better feel for how to explain this to Valdemarans somewhat coherently, “One can be born in a male body, but with a woman’s soul. Having a female soul would be indicated by a green band, slightly different shape as well. One can also have a neutral gendered soul, which is indicated by a blue band, again a different shape.”

Blinking greeted him, and he took the chance to elaborate a bit, hopefully tie it into his religious beliefs and therefore subsume it under the No One True Way custom more explicitly.

“We believe that when people die, their souls are reincarnated after some time spent healing,” he said, “Some souls are more attached to their gender than others, and hold to that gender regardless of the shape of the body they are reborn to. Others are more flexible, and take on whatever gender is most commonly associated with their body.”

Now was not the time to mention species mismatch, Valdemarans all seemed to struggle with the idea that there were more peoples than human and Companion out in the world, barring those few who had actually _met_ another people – which was apparently very rare indeed. Fortunately for these Valdemarans and his own sanity, he was no sort of mismatch. Dealing long term with a culture that didn’t even have a concept of his own identity as a person would be insanely frustrating. He was having a hard enough time with explaining his blood-rage and that they at least had a _word_ for, even if everyone seemed to have a different idea of what berserker meant.

“As for how they work,” Aelius finally said, shrugging and taking a long sip of beer. Judging by Kantor’s reaction, this would be the actual breaking point, “I ink needles with the colors I want and embed the colors in my skin.”

“You _what_?”

“ _Needles?!”_

**Author's Note:**

> I swear, right hand to Vkandis, that we will explore tattoos, tattoo lore and tattoo magic in this ficlet series and in the full fic for sure. Also cultural differences and Aelius answering so many questions from so many people _because I can_ and also because it's cool. Has Misty made any canon decisions about trans people in Valdemar in the Mags books? I haven't gotten through all those and haven't found specific references in the other texts, so I'm interpreting it as Valdemar has no widespread concept of transgender people. Please let me know if I'm wrong! Aelius and Kantor are set well before Mags, so it wouldn't really change anything, but I'd like to know! -MR
> 
> We've done a lot of world-building for Crane and Cranial language and culture all the way from the Cataclysm, so enjoy the little hints you get here! (There will be more later, promise!!) And, no, Mercedes Lackey hasn't (yet?) canonized genderfluid or transgender concepts in any way - unless you count that one story in OathBlood where Need can't decide whether a HawkBrother mage is male or female and saves his life (Lackey's choice of pronouns). They don't play a large part in Aelius' story, but they are part of the Cranial culture we've developed, and will occasionally get mentioned. -OR
> 
> Also, I am so happy to have this fic out there so mental-visualization people can start imagining Aelius with some serious ink! AND EVEN BETTER! The amazing Origami_Roses has some sketches!!!  
> Hope you enjoyed! No promises for answers to any questions, some have to be saved for the story! But this should give you one heck of a spring board. -MR
> 
> A visual overview of standard Cranial tattoos can be found [here](https://www.deviantart.com/origami-roses/art/Basic-Guide-to-Cranial-Tattoo-Culture-858422593?ga_submit_new=10%3A1602985325) and portraits of a few of the Iron Dogs will be linked to the previous fic, so go back and check that out. ~_* Hope you all enjoy! -OR  
> Edit: in response to a comment thread (but otherwise unconnected to the story) an illustration of my impression of [a tervardi](https://www.deviantart.com/origami-roses/art/Tervardi-867913494).


End file.
